Mommy Dearest
by csi-lvegas
Summary: Catherine questions her mothering skills with Lindsay; Catherine and Gil grow closer.


June Challenge: Mommy Dearest  
  
Author: CSI3 TMAC  
  
Chapter 1/?  
  
Just writing as I go. I hope I am doing the title justice.  
  
Disclaimer: Thank you to Tazzer for helping me with my editing. CSI characters and show are not mine, I wish, I'd be rich, but they aren't so don't sue me.  
  
As the rest of the world was ending their shifts, punching out and going home, Catherine Willows was just waking up and getting ready to head into her shift with Las Vegas Police Department Criminalistics Unit. She rolled over stretching out her arms and peered over at the clock.  
  
"Oh, my God! Lindsay will be home any minute." She jumped out of bed and ran to the bathroom. She ran a brush through her hair and a wash cloth over her face, then quickly turned back to the bedroom where she pulled on a pair of khaki pants and a nice top.  
  
"Mommy!"  
  
"Hey, sweetie, I'm in here."  
  
Lindsay walked into the bedroom and slung her bright blue back pack down onto the floor and looked up at Catherine. "Did you forget?"  
  
"Forget?...No I didn't forget."  
  
"But you aren't ready. You said you'd be ready when I got home from school."  
  
"I did?...I forgot...what did I forget?"  
  
"The Mirage. We were going to see the tigers tonight, you promised that before your shift you would take me to see the tigers, just like daddy use to."  
  
"Oh, honey, I'm sorry. I'll get ready now and we'll go, we'll just take your stuff with us and I'll drop you by Nancy's on the way to work afterwards."  
  
Disappointment covered the child's face. "Never mind. You aren't even ready." Lindsay stomped out of the bedroom and into the living room turning cartoons on the television.  
  
Catherine followed, "No, Lindsay, I'm sorry. Look, just give me a few minutes to get ready and we'll go."  
  
Slouching down on the couch she mumbled, "I wish daddy were still here." "What?!"  
  
"I said I wish daddy were still here! He use to have time to take me places and do things with me! You never have time!"  
  
"Linds, we have plenty of time. I just need to run and get dressed and we can go."  
  
"What about dinner?"  
  
"We'll grab something at the Mirage or that pizza place you like near there."  
  
"Okay."  
  
"Good, now I'm going to get ready." Catherine bent over the back of the couch and kissed her daughter on the head. "I'll be out in a minute."  
  
Closing the bedroom door behind her, Catherine walked over to the closet to pull out her clothes for work. As she changed, she heard a buzzing noise coming from her dresser. Picking her pager up she glanced down at the number. Gil! Picking up the phone and starting to only slightly panic she dialed.  
  
"Grissom."  
  
"Gil, this had better be good. I'm talking a dead senator, a collapsed building, or some natural disaster because I have a child in the other room that is already pissed at me enough..."  
  
"Hodges called. We have a DB at the Morocco, ID'd as one of our past assault victims, suspect still at large, you were the CSI on the case so he's pushing it to us."  
  
"What? Now?"  
  
"The body isn't going to investigate itself. Sara's going to meet you there."  
  
"Shit! Tell Sara I'll be there, I have to take Lindsay to Nancy's." Catherine hung up her phone and slammed it onto the dresser. Turning towards the door, her heart pounded. She walked into the living room.  
  
Lindsay had perked up since Cat had gone in the bedroom but she saw her daughters face slowly darken as she turned to look at her. "Mom, you still aren't ready...What's wrong?"  
  
"Work. I just got paged to a case. I've got to take you to Nancy's and meet Sara at a crime scene. Baby, I am so..."  
  
"It's always work. Why can't you work a normal job like everyone else's parents? I should just live with Nancy. She even said so herself and so did Grandma."  
  
"Lindsay, I don't have time for this. Get your stuff together." Catherine ran back into her bedroom and rushed through preparing for work. As she rushed her feet became entangled in Lindsay's back pack still laying on her bedroom floor. With a thud Catherine fell to the floor.  
  
Lindsay came running into the bedroom, "Mommy? Are you alright?"  
  
"Lindsay, how many times have I told you not to leave things lying around on the floor? This back pack could have killed me."  
  
"That'd be a first for your lab, mother killed by child's back pack." She answered flippily and then retrieved her back pack and walked out.  
  
Driving in complete silence Catherine could tell that Lindsay was still upset about their change of plans. Dropping Lindsay with Nancy, she raced to the crime scene to meet Sara. With kit in hand, she walked under the crime scene tape and towards Sara. "Hey, Sara, sorry it took me a while. What do we have?"  
  
"10 year old female. She's been beaten pretty badly, we'll have to get Doc Robbins to give us a cause of death on this one though. Grissom says she's one of you're past assault vics."  
  
Catherine surveyed the scene. "No real sign of struggle, "she noted. "Do we know who the room is registered to?"  
  
"Victim's mother, Brass is calling her now."  
  
"Mom leaves 10 year old in a hotel room alone?" Catherine looked over at Sara.  
  
"I'll take the bed if you want to dust."  
  
Catherine had serious issues with this case. Lindsay was only 10 years old and she couldn't help but think about her own daughter as this child lay here. Nodding, she walked towards the bathroom deciding to check that out first. It appeared clean, again no sign of struggle, a coat hanger lying on the floor and trace amounts of white powder. The powder smelt like cleaning powder, she collected a bit with gloved hands for Greg to check in trace and then collected the hanger and bagged it. She finished by printing the bathroom.  
  
"I found a hanger in the bathroom and some trace powder, smells like cleaning powder, we'll get it to Greg."  
  
"Mommy Dearest?"  
  
"What?"  
  
"Joan Crawford, Mommy Dearest, no more wire hangers! You know, the movie."  
  
"Don't tell me Grissom's rubbed off on you. I don't know, could be just a hanger from where the mom got dressed in the bathroom and left the hanger. When I'm in a hurry, there's no telling what you'll find laying around my room."  
  
Sara and Catherine continued processing. The coroner took the body back to the lab and Brass arrived with the mother. The two interrogated the mother and then took a DNA sample. After the crime scene had been gone over, the women returned to the lab to work on the evidence. Catherine's cell phone rang.  
  
"Willows."  
  
"Hey, Cat, it's Nancy. Look, I was talking to Lindsay and she says you've been really busy lately with work..."  
  
"Nancy, before this goes any further, I do appreciate you keeping her. I am looking for a nanny, I promise."  
  
"Cat, it's just that mom and I are worried. Shuffling Lindsay back and forth like this isn't healthy for her. You know she's always welcomed in my home, maybe she should stay with me until things calm down for you."  
  
"Nanc, I am not going to go through this with you. It's bad enough that Eddie use to tell me what a horrible mother I was, now my own family."  
  
"Look, Catherine maybe calling while you're working wasn't such a good idea." Nancy hung up.  
  
Sara couldn't help but overhear the conversation, concerned she turned to her coworker, "You okay?"  
  
Her eyes tearing up, Catherine turned away answering, "Fine. I'm going to the locker room for a minute, put my jacket in my locker."  
  
"Sure."  
  
Catherine turned and walked away. Sara worried that Catherine's relationship with her daughter would cloud her judgement on this case anyway and now on top of it all the argument on the cell phone didn't sound promising. Sara decided to log the evidence and report to Grissom.  
  
June Challenge: Mommy Dearest  
  
Author: CSI3 TMAC  
  
Chapter 2/?  
  
Just writing as I go. I hope I am doing the title justice.  
  
Disclaimer: Thank you to Tazzer for helping me with my editing. CSI characters and show are not mine, I wish, I'd be rich, but they aren't so don't sue me.  
  
Sara interrupted Grissom as he looked through a file, "Got a minute."  
  
"Sara, what is it? I thought you were working a case with Catherine."  
  
"I am. I just have an issue with working this particular case with her."  
  
Grissom lifted an eyebrow and peered over his wire rimmed glasses. "An issue?"  
  
"Grissom, the victim is a 10 year old female. Lindsay is a 10 year old female. You don't think Catherine is going to have some difficulty with this one?"  
  
"Sara, Catherine is a seasoned CSI. I think she can handle this, she was the primary on the assault case and she did fine with that."  
  
"That was assault and this is death, there is a big difference. Not to mention that the suspect was never found in the assault, maybe because Catherine let her emotions cloud her judgment initially. Can we take that chance?"  
  
Laying his pencil on the desk he closed the file and sat back in his chair. "Have you discussed your hesitations with Catherine?"  
  
"No chance. Her sister called, she got upset and went to the locker room."  
  
"I'll talk to her, but for now you two are working this case together. Time is evidence." Grissom then stood up, walked around his desk, by- passed a displeased Sara and straight for the locker room. He paused briefly after opening the locker room door.  
  
Inside Catherine's locker door was opened, she was sitting on the bench with her face in her hands crying.  
  
"Cath?"  
  
"Oh, Gil, sorry, I just came to hang my jacket in my locker. It's pretty dusty in here and I..."  
  
"You're crying about the amount of dirt in the locker room?" He looked at her with a grin.  
  
"No, I just...Gil, it's Lindsay. We had this fight before I left." Catherine slammed her locker closed.  
  
"You've both been through so much. Loosing Eddie has been hard for her."  
  
"It's not just that. God knows, I hated Eddie, but he was a great father. I'm starting to think all those times he told me I was a bad mother, he was right. Gil, I'm thinking about quitting."  
  
"If that's what you feel like you need to do."  
  
"Reverse psychology isn't going to work with me. It may work with our suspects but I'm not falling for it. My daughter is angry at me because I never have time for her. Hell, I never have time for me! With all the psychos we deal with on a daily basis I'm afraid to hire a nanny. My sister thinks that with me never being home that I should just leave Lindsay with her or my mom. They want to take my daughter from me. And what's worse, she wants to go!" Catherine began sobbing and sat back down on the bench again.  
  
Walking over to the bench and sitting next to her, he slowly folded his hands in his lap, careful not to touch her. "Would it help if I gave you a few days off?"  
  
"I don't know, maybe. Maybe not. What happens after those few days? It all goes back to the way it was."  
  
Taking his glasses off, he looked over at her. "What can I do to help you?"  
  
"Resurrect Eddie so that she'll have her father."  
  
"You know, Sara's afraid that this case is going to be too much for you and I'm starting to see she may be right."  
  
"Great, not only does my family think I am the pits as a mother, but now everyone thinks I can't do my job."  
  
Shaking his head Grissom answered, "I didn't say you couldn't, I just said it would be too much for you."  
  
"I have evidence to process, if I'm ever going to get home tonight." Catherine stood up and started to walk out of the locker room. "You know Grissom, I know I've said it before, but not everyone can be like you, we aren't robots, we have feelings."  
  
With that she turned to walk out the door.  
  
Inside the morgue she pulled on a blue lab coat. "Hey, Doc, whatcha got for us?"  
  
"Hey, Catherine. 10 year old, healthy, female, severely beaten, with a foreign object of some sort. The bruises are consistent with hand strikes. She has defensive wounds on her hands. However, cause of death is a head injury. Looks like strong blow to the back of the head, seen most often when someone falls and hits their head. Is it possible that she fell and hit her head on something, could be accidental if so?"  
  
"No, she was in the middle of a hotel room, positioning wasn't consistent with a fall."  
  
"Then maybe someone bashed her head into something, concrete floor."  
  
"Maybe, thanks doc." Catherine walked out of the morgue, running into Sara on her way out. "You know if you have a problem with the way I do my investigations you could have come to me."  
  
Sara threw her hands up in defense, "Wow, I never said I have a problem with how you do your investigations, I said that with this being a 10 year old girl, it may be hard for you."  
  
"I think I know when I can and can't take it."  
  
"Fine, what did you find out from Doc Robbins."  
  
"Head injury, consistent with someone falling and hitting their head. Anything new in the evidence."  
  
"The only fingerprints in the room, were mom, daughter, and a housekeeper who claims to have cleaned the room two hours before the mom even left the room. Mom claims to have had a job interview and didn't want the daughter there, thought it may look bad to have her kid hanging around. Something bothers me about the mother though, she hasn't asked to see her daughter at all."  
  
"Does seem odd. When I investigated the assault, the mother did all the talking even though she claimed to not be home when the little girl was abused. They said it was a babysitter that did it. I'm liking the mom for this."  
  
"Me too. Greg paged me a few minutes ago, he's got some results."  
  
The two women walked down to the lab where Greg Saunders stood waiting. "Hello, ladies."  
  
"Greg, Sara says that you have something for us." Catherine stood with hands on hips.  
  
"Yep, powder in the bathroom belongs to the Dutch maid."  
  
Sara twisted her face in confusion, "What?"  
  
"Dutch maid, you know, the cleaner. It's a powdered bathroom cleaner. Anyway, the hanger that Catherine gave me was really interesting though."  
  
Cat looked over at Sara and then back at Greg and folded her arms across her chest. "No more wire hangers?"  
  
"Aaah, a movie buff. Our vic's DNA was on the hanger, and I found a bit of skin on the wrapped part of the hook. The skin belongs to mommy dearest."  
  
Sara turned towards the door and Cat followed. They went to Jim Brass and asked him to bring the mother in for questioning. While they were waiting for the mother to arrive, Catherine walked down to the lounge for some coffee. As she sat back at the table sipping the strong concoction that Greg no doubt had made, Grissom entered.  
  
"I was thinking about what you said." He started, pulling a chair up next to her. "I think I can help. I have some free time, what if I go and get Lindsay and take her to a movie, maybe to the Mirage or Cirque de Cirque. There's a bug display at the museum, I can take her there. I can talk to her about your job and why it's so important."  
  
Catherine put her cup down and smiled. "You'd do that?"  
  
"Sure, why not?"  
  
"I just didn't see you as a kid person. You know that silent movies aren't going to hold her attention and she gets grossed out by bugs pretty easily."  
  
Frowning he came up with another plan, "Okay, so we rent Disney's 'A Bug's Life' and make us both happy."  
  
Catherine giggled, "It isn't a documentary, Gil and thanks for offering but, I think I just need to spend more time with my daughter somehow." She looked down at her coffee cup sitting the table.  
  
"You know I'm here for you. Eddie was a jerk, but we aren't all like that." Reaching out he took her hand in his.  
  
"I know."  
  



End file.
